I listened to The Beatles during my workout the past two mornings, something I hadn't done in quite some time, perhaps six months. That may seem a short time to some but it may be a record for me - I grew up on The Beatles and for the first twenty years plus of my music-listening life I listened to them more than anyone else, rarely going a more than a few days or a week without putting them on the stereo. Dylan took over in the-most-listened-to category for awhile and then (and still) Van Morrison but I have always gone back to them often and with pleasure. I can report back the answer to the question "Can you still love the music you listened to as a child nearly fifty years later?" is yes, definitely, so long as it's The Beatles. It's not just nostalgia. They were great. Great singers (John Lennon in his prime, circa 1963-1965, was the greatest rock and roll singer of them all) and great songwriters, they did nearly nothing that was worthless, little that was banal or ordinary. They were consistently great, from 1962 until they disbanded (though their final single, "The Long and Winding Road" was perhaps evidence that their time was up - it may be their only really boring song.)
You can blame Lennon and McCartney for my insistence that a great song must have a great melody for that is what stands out about The Beatles' songs to me now: they were master melodists. Of course Lennon and McCartney wrote the bulk, and the greatest, of the songs, but George Harrison had nothing to hang his head about. All told, their list of great songs seems never-ending (I've got 77 Beatles songs on my iPod though I could easily have 177) and are too numerous to mention. I don't really have to, do I? Unless you grew up in a cave far from civilazation you must know some of them. Add to their perfect melodic touch the great vocals, the soaring harmonies, George Martin's productions, and Ringo's perfect drums, and you dozens and dozens of little gems. They were indeed the greatest rock and roll band of them all. They were worth listening to in 1964 when I first heard them as a six year old boy, and they are worth listening to now as I approach old age. I don't expect that will ever change.
I just mentioned Ringo's drums. Please don't tell me Ringo Starr was not a great drummer, as many sophisticates like to do. Sure, he wasn't as technically adept as Charlie Watts let alone Keith Moon but he was the perfect drummer for The Beatles. The simple technique, the steady beat, the ability to stay out of the way of the vocals, his fill-in riffs (listen to the drums on "Ticket to Ride", perhaps his finest moment) - he was as much a part of the team as the others. And that was the key. For a few years these supremely talented men were put their egos aside for the good of the music. As has often been said, they melded perfectly together to become more than the sum of their parts. They were the perfect musical collaboration. It couldn't last and it was perhaps inevitable that it would all come to a bad ending, full of accusations and recriminations. But while it lasted, boy were they something. The music still fills me with something akin to glee.
The bitter end is chronicled in this recent book, Peter Doggett's "You Never Give Me Your Money: The Beatles After the Breakup", which I've heard good things about. Click on the book's cover to get to the Amazon page.
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And finally, for your listening pleasure, one of my favorites, and the title of this post. Ringo's drums are great here too. I'm also using it as my song of the day. Enjoy:
[audio:WhatYoureDoing.mp3]
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